


Crushing on the Girl Across the Street

by FrsdGirl



Series: I Thought Romance Was a Foregone Conclusion... [2]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: 2ND STORY EVER YAY!!!, Fluff, One-Shot, Phineas is in for four very long years, candace KNOWS, seriously Phineas and Candace are on opposite sides of the oblivious spectrum, siblings helping each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrsdGirl/pseuds/FrsdGirl
Summary: Set the summer before high school, Phineas grows worried that he’s never had a crush. With Candace’s pre-law expertise, he may just figure out that a crush isn’t what he thinks it is... and that a certain pink bow wearing, overly-competitive, whatcha-doing’ saying next-door neighbor checks all the boxes. Cute sibling interaction where Candace tries to clue in an extremely oblivious Phineas.
Relationships: Phineas Flynn/Isabella Garcia-Shapiro
Series: I Thought Romance Was a Foregone Conclusion... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931140
Comments: 15
Kudos: 59





	Crushing on the Girl Across the Street

**Author's Note:**

> SECOND STORY EVER! I would be remiss if I didn’t thank everyone who sent kudos and comments my way for the last story. I’m a writer but this is my first official foray into fanfic land, and it means more than I can possibly express to see that encouragement in this new community. 
> 
> Moving into the story, this one is set earlier than my last one and we’re still living with Oblivious Phineas. But not for long... 
> 
> As always, I do not own any part of Phineas and Ferb. If I did, clearly I would start a reboot with the all of the gang in high school. But until I can hire a team of animators, this will have to do.

“Candace?” Phineas nervously looked at his sister.  
The two of them were in the living room, waiting for their mom to call them for dinner. Candace still had summer classes, but Phineas was happy that she could come into town more often. He was starting high school soon and knew that everyone’s lives were about to get busier. He and Ferb had even taken some days off inventing, so they could spend more time together without giant contraptions in the backyard. Well, maybe not full days off, more like half days, but still. Candace seemed to appreciate it.  
The two siblings sat in happy silence for awhile. She was looking through case studies while he tweaked the blueprints for Danville’s Book Palooza tomorrow. He and Ferb had volunteered to create an immersive experience chamber, where one could go visit the settings of their favorite books and simply sit and enjoy them at their leisure. He was especially excited for an idea he had for this book he and Isabella liked… but that was beside the point right now.  
He had been preoccupied in these happy thoughts when he glanced over and saw Candace pick up her phone. She smiled in such a goofy way that Phineas would be willing to bet his left-handed flange tuner it was Jeremy. This had led to a nagging question he had been thinking of for several weeks now, but hadn’t really talked to anyone about.  
“Candace?” He called again.  
“Yes?” She answered. She had typed a quick response and was already caught up in her studies. Her expression was one of intense concentration, one he had grown accustomed to regularly seeing on his sister’s face growing up. He had yet to meet anyone who could focus on a goal the way Candace could.  
“How did you know you had a crush on Jeremy?” Phineas asked.  
Her hand suddenly stopped over one of the pages, and she looked up at him, eyes narrowing.  
“Is there a specific reason you’d like to know?”  
Phineas shrugged.  
“I guess, I just feel like I’ve never had one and I was wondering.”  
She sighed, somehow annoyed.  
“She’ll be waiting forever.”  
Phineas furrowed his eyebrows at her, but Candace had already turned back to her assignment.  
“So, how did you know?” He prodded.  
When she looked at him again, her expression softened.  
“Is this something you’re worried about?” She asked.  
“I just—isn’t it weird that I haven’t had one yet? I mean, obviously you liked Jeremy for awhile. And Ferb is such a ladies’ man, but I haven’t felt the way you two seem to feel.”  
She stopped and thought, leaning back in her chair.  
“Describe to me the way you feel.”  
He smiled to himself. Her lawyer side was coming out.  
“Uh,” He started, thinking of the romantic antics from four years ago. “Well, you always seem to get really distracted, and you mentioned him all the time, and you’d do all this stuff to get his attention.”  
“And you don’t find yourself doing any of those things around anyone?” She interrogated.  
“Me? I don’t think so. I do a lot of things for my friends, but I don’t think that counts. And of course I mention our friends a lot, you know, when we do our projects. And I get distracted with the projects…”  
“Let’s get this back on track. Tell me about yesterday.” She crossed her arms.  
He laughed. Yeah, she was definitely in lawyer mode.  
“Well, we decided to put on a reverse laser tag game.” Phineas said.  
“What?”  
“Reverse laser tag. Instead of having a course where you have laser guns and try to get each other out, the course itself shoots lasers and you use your body to try to shield those lasers from hitting a flying target.”  
She stared at him.  
“Want me to show you? Buford posted some videos, better yet, we can incorporate it into the Palooza tomorrow and you can—“  
“Phineas, get back on track.”  
“Oh right,” He said sheepishly, thinking back. “So we woke up, Isabella came over and helped us finish the blueprints, she found some arithmetic mistakes that would have made the target shoot straight up into the sky and just never come back down again, so that was good, and then she left for a bit cause she had to feed Pinky. Oh and then Buford and Baljeet were helping and we got everything pretty much done by the afternoon, I dropped a concrete slab on a compression valve when Isabella came back in, I wasn’t paying attention when she said hi, but thankfully it didn’t take too long to fix cause Isabella had brought the Fireside Girls with her. Then we all played and I was on a team with Isabella, Buford, Gretchen, Holly and Katie, and we didn’t win the first three games but Isabella, well you know how competitive she is, so she wouldn’t let us change teams until we were winning so we played another four games and won all of those so we switched and played a bit more after that and then yeah. That’s it. Oh, and then space harpies came down and took it all away, but we forgot to put the spray on it, so that was to be expected, ya know?”  
What had started as a small smile on Candace’s face was a full fledged grin by the time he finished.  
“So, you don’t think anything in there would quality as symptoms of a crush?” She asked.  
He thought for a second.  
“Well, no. Why would it? I didn’t even meet anyone new yesterday, how could I have a crush?”  
“Why do you think a crush has to be on someone new?”  
“I mean, you met Jeremy and knew. And Ferb, I mean he saw Vanessa and got a crush. The butterflies, you know. The uncertainty. It’s gotta be someone new.”  
Candace only sighed at him. “That poor girl.”  
“What? Vanessa? What happened to Vanessa?”  
“No, Phineas.” She closed her notes, the scent of macaroni and cheese wafting in from the dining room. She surveyed him for a second. “Not all crushes are sudden and unexpected. I’d say most of them really develop after you get to know someone and crush on who they are as a person. Maybe stop trying to figure out what a crush means to other people, and decide what you want it to mean to you.”  
He wrung his hands together and sighed.  
“Hey.” She said, reaching over and placing a hand over his. “You’ve got time, okay. It’s going to happen when it’s the right person. But like you said, you have some wonderful friends. Maybe focus on what you have instead of what you don’t.”  
Phineas looked up and nodded at her.  
“Okay.” He said.  
“Good! Now I’m starving. I’ll set the table, if you need another second. And know you can come to me with these questions anytime. The teleporter on my phone makes it pretty easy to visit. And gee, I wonder what brilliant minds made what that possible?”  
She ruffled his hair and got up, walking away. Candace stopped at the entry, turning around.  
“You know,” she said, “Crushes aren’t that complicated. I like to think of it like heightened interest. That something about the person just captivates you. That you can’t exactly describe it, but you want to know them a bit better, whether they’re someone you just met or your best friend. I think that’s a crush.”  
She smirked at him and left the room, leaving a confused looking Phineas behind.  
Well, he thought to himself, that only made things even more confusing. He started putting the blueprints away when his phone buzzed.  
He couldn’t help but break into a goofy grin when he saw Isabella’s name flash across the front. He had been spamming her phone all day asking if she could come over early tomorrow morning to help. This was her final summer as a Fireside Girl, which meant a lot more collaborations with neighboring troupes and unfortunately less availability for their summer projects. She had yet to miss one if she could keep from it, but it was still a bit weird for him. He was used to her presence and things never felt as settled when she wasn’t there helping. So, yeah, maybe eleven unanswered texts was a bit much but she never complained so who was to really say?  
Isabella: What time do you need me there? Also, the girls have a bunch of leftover peanut butter, you and Ferb need any? :)  
Phineas: Yes!!! We have so many blowtorches left over from last Thursday lol and YAYAYAY SEE YOU THEN!!!!  
Isabella: I gotchu covered :)  
He just loved having Isabella in his life. Someone he could count on, he could think of, he could—  
The goofy smile came back.  
And then was promtly replaced with a look of pure panic.  
Could it?  
No.  
He thought back to his story. To yesterday. All of the highlights seemed to be about one specific person...  
Constant mentions, check.  
He thought of the fuzzy feeling he got in his brain when she came in the backyard, the giddy excitement he would feel when she said her catchphrase...  
Distracted, check.  
He looked down at the blueprint in front of him. He hadn’t told her yet, but he had put in a hidden feature in the designs. For everyone else, they were just recreating the setting and people could walk around and such. But he and Isabella had bonded over this sci-fi series, so just for their scenario, they would be able to fly the spaceship around a digitally designed, foreign planet cavern course. That meant the final element, doing things to catch her attention…  
Noooooo.  
Phineas felt a swooping in his chest, it was wonderful and dreadful all at once.  
Isabella. His best friend. His first crush. Destined to be in the friend zone for all time…  
All his previous worries about not having a crush were replaced with worries about having a HUGE crush. And his impatience to see her doubled even as his palms grew sweaty.  
Isabella. His best friend.  
Yeah, high school was gonna suck.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING! The world is so crazy right now and having this fandom as an outlet has been such a blessing. 
> 
> THANKS authenticcadence18 for helping me figure out how to turn this into a series and for offering so much support! You da best! 
> 
> That’s all! 
> 
> In honor of Candace’s appearance here: 
> 
> FrsdGirl is out, PEACE!


End file.
